DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Get in the best shape of your life with just 30 minutes exercise a week (...even though it's cold, wet and miserable!)

Most of us are aware of the undeniable health benefits of regular exercise. But that doesn’t mean we jump out of bed and leap into action – especially when it’s cold, wet and miserable outside.

Flagging motivation – or a complete lack of it – explains why so many fitness resolutions made at the start of January bite the dust right about now. Lack of time is another reason why we give up.

And, if you have been rewarding yourself with a small snack after finishing your workout, you are unlikely to have seen the wished-for improvements around your waistline.

Flagging motivation – or a complete lack of it – explains why so many fitness resolutions made at the start of January bite the dust right about now. Lack of time is another reason why we give up (stock photo)

With this in mind, I have put together a six-week programme based on the latest science which aims to help you beat the fitness slump. Not only is it a highly effective way to get fit, it’s also unbelievably quick, which means there’s no excuse not to do it.

It involves just ten minutes on a static bike three times a week, plus quick strengthening exercises which don’t require special equipment. And it’s what I do myself.

Exercise alone is rarely enough to shed the pounds; you’ll have to resist the snacks too. But the particular type of activity in this plan – high intensity interval training, or HIIT – has been shown to suppress appetite by reducing levels of a hunger hormone called ghrelin.

The exercise plan involves just ten minutes on a static bike three times a week, plus quick strengthening exercises which don’t require special equipment. And it’s what I do myself

HIIT involves a few very short bursts of strenuous exercise carried out in succession. Doing this has been shown to produce big improvements in both aerobic fitness (how strong your heart and lungs are) and blood sugar control in a remarkably short amount of time.

According to Dr Niels Vollaard, a scientist at Stirling University, studies in his laboratory showed that a short HIIT workout three times each week led to the same level of improvement seen after a similar number of less vigorous 45-minute workouts.

He told me: ‘With both approaches, you see a ten per cent improvement in aerobic fitness, which is very worthwhile. The difference is that our HIIT regime is much more time-efficient.’

For more exercise tips and myth-busting, watch Dr Mosley on The Truth About Getting Fit, BBC1, Wednesday, January 31, 8pm. Dr Mosley also presents Trust Me, I’m A Doctor on Wednesdays on BBC2.

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There are lots of different forms of HIIT, but the one I favour involves doing short bursts on an exercise bike.

It is over so quickly I don’t even bother to get changed.

If you don’t have an exercise bike and don’t want to go to a gym, you can try pedalling your road bike furiously up a hill, running up the stairs, or doing short sprints when out on a run.

Or just pick up your walking pace until you are breathing hard.

How to track your success

You can use your resting heart rate as a measure of your aerobic fitness to see how much it improves over the six weeks of the plan.

Measure your pulse at your wrist by counting the number of beats in 20 seconds and then multiply by three. It is best done first thing in the morning when sitting down.

In adults, a resting heart rate between 60 and 90 beats a minute is normal.

My resting rate is just over 60 beats per minute – a top athlete might have one closer to 45.

If you have a heart rate below 60, but are not athletic, that is abnormal and you might want to have it checked out.

The main thing is that these bursts should be brief (30 seconds maximum when it comes to the stairs, or running), but hard enough to get your heart rate up.

I know it seems unlikely that such bursts of exercise could make any meaningful difference. Yet top athletes have been using this sort of approach for decades.

In 1954 a young medical student, Roger Bannister, became the first person in the world to run a sub-four-minute mile thanks to HIIT. As a busy student, he didn’t have lots of spare time so he would go down to the track and do interval sprints. He would run flat out for one minute, then jog for two to three minutes before doing another one-minute sprint. He would repeat this ten times, then get back to work.

The version I’m suggesting is a lot gentler, but it is still very effective.

Dr Vollaard says that in the first 20-second sprint, your body breaks down the stored sugar in your muscles, flooding the muscle with energy. This sets off a whole cascade of other reactions, including the release of something he calls signalling molecules.

When you do your second sprint, these signalling molecules are activated and help stimulate the growth of things like heart muscle. This, in time, leads to big improvements in aerobic fitness.

This plan is aimed at people, like me, who are busy and don’t really enjoy exercise but want to keep up their basic fitness. Athletes can easily add this to other routines.

As with any new exercise regime, consult your doctor before starting if you have joint problems, high blood pressure or a significant medical condition.

WEEK ONE

If you are not used to HIIT it is really important to start gradually.

With Dr Vollaard’s regime, you get on an exercise bike, warm up by doing gentle cycling for three minutes, then start to pick up the pace.

At the same time, increase the resistance on the bike to one of the highest levels so you are cycling intensively against almost maximum resistance. Do this for ten seconds. Then, drop the pace and resistance for another three minutes to cool down. That is your first HIIT session completed.

Repeat twice more during week one, but this time do two ten-second sprints, with three minutes’ leisurely pedalling in between the sprints to catch your breath and let your heart rate drop.

WEEK TWO & THREE

Do the same thing as you did for week one, but do two lots of 15-second sprints each session.

Allow yourself a couple of minutes of gentle pedalling between the sprints to recover. Do this three times a week with at least a day between sessions.

WEEK FOUR, FIVE AND SIX

Repeat the routine from week one, but increase your HIIT session to two lots of 20 seconds’ sprinting each time. Do this three times each week.

And it’s as simple as that!

Within six weeks you should being feeling much fitter and you’ll find you can do things such as walking up the stairs or tackling a steep hill much more comfortably and without puffing.

As you get fitter, you may choose to cut back on the warm-up. But do keep to doing a couple of minutes of cool-down at the end of the session, as during your sprints lots of blood will have gone to your legs. If you get off the bike or stop what you’re doing too quickly, you might feel wobbly.

Six quick and easy body building exercises

If preventing middle-age spread is important to you, then as well as HIIT you need to do some resistance training, to keep up your strength.

It really is a case of use it or lose it, as muscle bulk typically declines by three per cent each decade after the age of 30.

The great thing about having muscles is that they burn calories even when you are sleeping, so having extra muscle stores can prevent excess flabby bits.

It is also an effective way of improving mood. A study from the University of South Carolina found that women who did resistance training twice a week saw an impressive reduction in anxiety levels in just six weeks.

These exercises are impressively brief and require no special equipment.

They take less than five minutes and work most of the major muscle groups. I do them first thing when I get out of bed.

Repeat each exercise as many times as you can for 30 seconds, resting for ten seconds between each exercise before moving on to the next.

Do this twice a week to start with and build up to three times a week after the first couple of weeks if you can.

As you get fitter you may want to vary the exercises. The important thing is to alternate working upper and lower body. That gives your muscles more time to recover.

1. Press-ups

Lie face-down with the palms of your hands directly beneath your shoulders and the balls of your feet touching the ground.

Keep your body straight – your head in line with your back – and raise yourself up using your arms.

Lower your body to the floor until your elbows form a 90-degree angle and then push up again. Repeat.

If you find this too hard, perform the exercise with your knees on the ground until you are strong enough to do the full thing.

2. Abdominal crunches

Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor and your hands positioned by your sides or lightly at the sides of your head.

Curl up your upper body without lifting your lower back off the floor.

Make sure your chin is tucked in towards your chest. Push back up without bending your back, and repeat.

3. Tricep dips

Stand with your back to a chair; place your palms on the seat behind you, bending your knees at right angles, hips straight.

Bend your elbows to 90 degrees to lower your body so that your bottom descends halfway to the floor. Push yourself back up using only your arms, and repeat.